Day 17 - Capri

I think I am actually getting quite used to waking up so early, or maybe its just WHERE we are waking up. How can you be grumpy when you wake up to a view like this:

After breakfast, where we had the vomitter on our table SCREAMING for salt and pepper again, we all bundled onto the bus waiting for Cabbage Patch when we can hear a side conversation of Kath telling people that she fell over on the bus last night. This is when Moishii turns around and SCREAMs "YOU FELL AGAIN???". Apparently she fell again when she got onto the bus after dinner last night. Moishii immediately accused me of getting her drunk causing her to fall again after taking a shot of limoncello. Well, atleast she knew what she was doing when she fell!!

To make things more interesting, Good Old has a fear of heights. She told us one time she was driving to meet a friend and had to go over a bridge, she freaked out and pulled by the side of the road and refused to drive over. She ended up calling the cops, who came and jumped into her car to drive her over the bridge whilst she had her head down. When they got to the other side, the cop had to get out and walk back across the bridge to get back to his patrol car. So when we were getting into the bus to go to Capri, she climbed to the back of the bus and Ron was following. But Cabbage Patch said there was a seat upfront right next to the door and asked Ron to sit there as it'll be easier than him trying to climb to the back with his cane. Good Old immediately went white in the face and started panicking screaming that Ron had to sit with her. It took a few people to calm her down and convince her we're only driving to the port to catch a ferry, THEN we will be driving on cliffs.

A short bus ride later, we arrive at a small port to catch a ferry to the Isle of Capri. We met up with our new tour guide and headed towards the pier. We stood in line waiting, when all of a sudden, another tour group tries to walk past our group. Next thing you know, this guy had missed a small step whilst walking in a group. All you could see was this guy doing a 360degree twirl in the middle of a crowd then fall foward smashing his water bottle all over the floor. He jumps up and runs off straight away. God, we can't even wait in line without an incident. Atleast it wasn't Kath...

We're told to get onto the ferry, so me and Prison Break chick starts walking only to see everyone else on the tour 50m behind us. Apparently, after the guide told us to start walking, she decided to hand out name tags to everyone but me and the Prison Break chick. Like wtf? I get onto the ferry and the place is pretty packed. I grab a seat and wait for Moishii to get on, this is when someone screamed that they're sitting upstairs. Without thinking, me and Moishii, plus the Good Olds jumped up and started racing towards the stairs. But we didn't realise that there are no stairs and you can't go upstairs. Since everyone at the back of the boat saw us get up and run, we would look like morons if we went back to our seats, so instead, we sat at the front of the ferry like it was our intention all along. This was a big mistake considering we were sitting next to this:


To distract us, Ron decided to tell us a few stories about his family and Thanksgiving. Apparently his Sister-in-Law is a nut. She was hosting the Thanksgiving dinner that year, and wanted to have dinner at 5pm, but because his sister wanted to visit her daughter for dinner, asked for the Thanksgiving dinner to start earlier at midday. The Sister-in-law decided on a 2-3pm start, but didn't start cooking until about 2pm. She ended up deliberately starving everyone for 5hours because they wanted an early get together, causing his sister to miss her daughter's dinner, who both ended up in tears. God I'm exhausted just thinking about that. Could be the lack of coffee catching up with me. We eventually settle down to our 30min boat ride, and we're just about to nod off when suddenly this woman jumps up, runs to the front of the boat and throws the door open. OMG! Is she going to jump? Next thing you know, a crew memeber coming running up screaming his head off at her, who was now trying to take a photo. For crying out loud woman, there are no outside seats for a reason! He practically yanks her back through the door and stands guard to make sure no one else tries to break out of the boat.

By the time I get off the boat, I've got a splitting headache. Luckily, the boat cruise around Capri will help cure that. We walk to a small jetty where we all climb onto a small boat. We squeeze together to get a seat, and off we went.

Many caves around Capri. This one has a special surprise...

What do you think you see?

Clear blue water around Capri

Views around Capri

After awhile, we pull up to the blue grotto and we get warned that you need to be quick to catch a glimpse of it. With my camera ready, the boat slowly drifts past the blue grotto giving you a glimpse of what everyone comes to Capri to see. I keep my finger on the trigger and ended up taking about 20 photos. This is when someone asked if anyone got a photo of the blue grotto and Maria screams "Lily's got photos! I can here her camera going off nonstop!". Oops...I'm really starting to get a reputation...

See that tiny bit of blue between the cracks? That's the blue grotto. Some tours will get you to switch to a smaller boat when you get to the blue grotto, and they slowly paddle you in whilst you lie down in the boat. We didn't get that option with our tour. We finally head back towards land when we spotted this:

Gees...no wonder the world is polluted. We hope off the boat and jump onto a bus that will take us up to Anacapri, which is the town half way up Capri. The road we took is called the "Mama Mia! Road", and I finally realised why. OH MY GOD I'm glad I'm not scared of heights...30cms too far to the right and we'll be tumbling down the cliff side! Especially with us tearing through the streets at alarming speed.

But the near heart attack is well worth it for the views we were getting:

When we get to the top, we're told that we can either stay where we are and go shopping, or catch a chairlift up to the top of Capri. Without a second thought, I grabbed Moishii and dragged him to the chairlift. The chairlift is about a 10-15min ride to the top of Capri, but the chairlift is suspended quite low. Even short me, had to sometimes lift my feet up to stop my feet kicking the top of trees and losing my shoes. The view up to the top was stunning!

Chairlift up

The view going up

But this was nothing compared to what we saw at the top of Capri!!

View from the top

At first I was wondering why it was so foggy down at Anacapri considering it was so sunny before. I took me awhile to realise those are clouds, and I was standing way above them!!

By the time we get to the top, we're completely dehydrated from the stinking hot heat. But I would've swapped any bottle of water for the view we saw. After wandering around and taking photos, we had to go meet up with the rest of the tour group. It was so hard for me to go back to the chairlift. I really could've spent hours just sitting by the side of the cliff and enjoying the view. This has got to be in the top 3 places in Italy for me. The chairlift down was more terrifying than going up. Going up, all you see is how much you've got left to go to reach the top. Going down, you see how far down you would plunge to your death. After a minute though, you tend to calm down alot more.

When we get back down to Anacapri, it was a quick jump onto the mini bus and into the main town. Because people really enjoyed the limoncello at dinner last night, the guide offered to let us have a quick stop over at a limoncello factory for some taste testing. Of course, being the alcoholics that we are, I think we both jumped to the front of the line. Not only did I get a bottle of limoncello, I also bought a few blocks of limoncello chocolate. This stuff is amazingly good! I think half of the tour group ended up walking away with purchases.

From there, we walked to the town square, where the guide gave us a few options. HIKE down to the gardens or freetime. I was done with the hiking and I'm pretty sure I was getting heat stroke. Neither of us wanted to walk, infact no one on the tour wanted to walk, so we opted for freetime instead since it was lunchtime. She pointed us to a cafe where we can go in and tell her we're a part of her tour group to get a cheap set lunch. Before she could even finish talking, the Irish couple practically shoved half of the group to the floor during her stampede to the restaurant. We decided to head on over as well as I really couldn't face standing at a bar to eat and have coffee in that heat. We seat ourselves on the balcony to get a good view of the town. Great idea at first, until we realised we only had half a table. Infact, it was probably smaller than that. We had a table that was a semi circle, meaning our food barely fit onto the table! I guess its not too bad, considering we were tanked!

Us having a sober day - wine at lunch

Our tiny table. Look how sunburnt I am!!

Pizza Magherita

Lemon cream sponge cake

Meanwhile, I saw the Good Olds rush into the cafe next door. I think they got their wires cross and went to the wrong restaurant. We finished up early and decided to do a bit of shopping, and the first thing we saw when we walked out of there was Kath, and there was a film crew filming Kath! And we were taking a photo of the film crew filming Kath because we're that sad to find it amusing!

Can you see Kath's hair behind the hat?

View from the Funicular station

We wander around and purchased more postcards and books before meeting up with everyone else. The first thing the Prison Break Chick screams is that she had hot chips for lunch and it was the best meal she's had in Italy. Like wtf? According to her, all the Italian food is bland and she finds much better Italian food back home because they're more "authentic"??? WTF?? And her dad was over the moon because he managed to get ice with his drink. These people have issues! Who flies half way around the world to Italy for chips, ice and burgers??? I quickly shove my way through the crowd ready to get onto the Funicular which will take us down to the port. This quickly became a pushing and shoving event with everyone trying to get on at the same time. It didn't help that the tour guide told us to shove our way through because we're late and we all have to get onto THIS funicular.

5mins later, we're down by the port, and from there, we hop onto the Ferry back to the mainland. By this stage, I definitely had heatstroke and a splitting headache. I sat there nodding off, when Ron, who was sitting behind us suddenly jumps up and starts screaming at me. WTF?? We were seated next to the snack bar, and he started screaming at me because he spotted some prepacked sandwiches called "Big Flippo" and thought I would "like it". Oh FFS. This is the problem when everyone expects you to be a fulltime professional photographer. To amuse them, I nodded and took a photo with my camera before collapsing back into my chair and passing out.

When we do get back to shore, we're shoved into this hot tin can of a bus where half of the people had to stand back to back. Not too much of an issue, except for the fact that the bus was TEARRRRRRRING through the streets and throwing us around the bends. When I got off, I swear my biceps were bigger and my hands were swollen from gripping onto the poles to stop myself from flying out of the bus.

We get dropped off at a wood inlaying factory for a demo, which lasted less than 5mins. The only good thing was the massive airconditioning that was freezing our butts off. We got to walk around their shop afterwards, where the Good Olds immediately started their shopping and ended up buying a wooden music box for about 100euros! OMG....can theese people not buy anything? This was too much. Me and Moishii hightailed out of there to roam around Sorrento a bit. The Sorrento town itself is nothing to rave about unless you're by the cliff edge. I ended up finding a shady area and just relaxed a bit whilst Moishii hiked around town trying to find an ATM. 15mins later he rocks up empty handed and we trudge back to the meeting point.

We stand around for ages when Umberto rocks up with a bus. Everyone was ready to kiss him the minute we got onto the bus because the aircon was going full blast! Bless you Umberto! We get back to the hotel for a nice relaxing shower, not before Good Old tries to attack titi again. But the manager tried to convince Good Old leave by telling her that titi isn't at work today. I think he locked the dog up for its own safety.

We grab a shower and relaxed a bit before heading to the dining room for dinner. We ended up sitting with the Good Olds as we haven't had a chance to have a meal with them yet.

Mini Pizzette

Pasta nepolitana sauce

Meat and 2 veges

Half way through dinner, Good Old started telling us about her mother, and how she tries to compete with her over everything. If Good Old has a sore throat, her mother would have tonsilitis. If Good Old has a cold, her mother will have pnuemonia. Everytime she calls up to chat, her mother will try to outdo her in being more sick or in more pain than Good Old. This is when Good Old tells us that she used to have cancer. And when her Mother found out, her mother reckoned she had cancer too! Apparently her mum tried to outdo her cancer!

She also told us how they went for a walk around town after our Capri excursion and bumped into this dog. Yes, another dog story. Anyway, she saw the dog and felt bad for the poor dog because he looked like he was starving. So she SAID to the dog "Come, I'll buy you a sandwich". And I mean she TALKED TO THE DOG. Anyway, the dog ends up following her to the nearest restaurant where she goes to order the sandwich. When she turns around, the dog had walked away. She spots the dog across the street and tells the dog to come back because she's buying him a sandwich. So she gets a ham and cheese sandwich from the restaurant and feeds it to the dog, who didn't really want to eat it. And somewhere along the line, she strikes up a conversation with a random stranger, who told Good Old, and the dog actually belongs to the restaurant that she bought the sandwich from! This is when I started screaming ath Good Old that she's NEVER bought me a ham and cheese sandwich, yet she buys a ham and cheese sandwich for a dog from the restaurant he belongs to!!

It was during this time, we noticed the absolutely gorgeous sunset happening right infront of our eyes. Without a second thought, half of the dining room jumped up to take photos. I only had my little point and shoot with me plus my phone camera. Feeling a bit disarmed, I grabbed the hotel room key, and literally bolted down 3 flights of stairs and tore through our hotel room whilst grabbing my DSLR. After wrestling the balcony door, I managed to grab a few photos before running back upstairs for dessert. Not before taking more photos though:

Peach mousse with berry coulis

By the time we had finished dinner, it was starting to get late and I was tired as hell. We headed back to the room to pack our stuff for the next leg of the trip. The plan was to get an early night as we'll be having a late night the next day. Meanwhile, you can hear this foghorn going off nonstop and it was really starting to piss me off. After a few minutes of that, I jumped up and threw the balcony door open to see what the hell was making all that noise. Next thing you know, I turn around and run back into the room screaming "CAMERA!!!!! CAMERA!!!!!!" scaring the shit out of Moishii:

Isn't this gorgeous? I managed to grab a few photos before it sailed off. If only I had looked earlier. And as I was happily snapping away, Tammi said she was wondering where I was and how come I wasn't taking photos! It looks like most of the tour group expects me to be armed with my camera ready to take photos at all times! After that commotion, it was time for bed to get ready for the last leg of the trip.